Will Chief Justice Roberts Stop Trump’s Funding Freeze?
As Donald Trump’s federal funding freeze creates a constitutional crisis that seems headed to the Supreme Court, a 1985 memo shows current chief justice John Roberts declaring that a president has no authority to block required spending.
President Donald Trump shakes hands with Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts after the president was sworn in during inauguration ceremonies in the Rotunda of the US Capitol on January 20, 2025, in Washington, DC. (Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)
In a 1985 memo to the White House’s top lawyer, now chief justice John Roberts wrote that a president may not block congressionally required spending — a declaration on a major legal question that now seems destined to move from the Trump White House to Roberts’s Supreme Court.
On Tuesday, President Donald Trump’s administration issued an order declaring that “all agencies must temporarily pause all activities related to obligation or disbursement of all federal financial assistance.” The directive — which sowed chaos throughout the country’s Medicaid and Head Start programs — was temporarily stayed by a federal judge. But the dispute over spending authority has created a constitutional crisis that is likely to be appealed up to the high court.
Roberts already outlined his views on such powers during his tenure in President Ronald Reagan’s White House Counsel’s Office.
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